Hunting in Harlem

by Mat Johnson

  Snowden stared in disbelief at the collection of stolen dentures lining the glass shelves, each set floating in its own dirty glass, each set with its own typed name tag pasted proudly at the base, and whispered, "Oh this motherfucker needs to die," before turning to kick the door in.

  The rage had come back and it was like, Welcome! Akwaaba! So good to see jou! With his full weight behind it, Snowden's foot made a big enough hole in the door's wood to reach his arm through. The dressers on the other side fell to the floor like they owed gravity money. Bursting into the hall, Snowden could see Ryan Waters still at the front door, both hands on the knob. On first sighting, Waters gave up his efforts, let go, and ran deeper into the living room. The knob kept turning wildly without him. Snowden wondered how many seconds he had before Lester would get the lock to work from the other side.

  The sound of a window creaking open was the answer to Snowden's unformed prayer. Go, Ryan Waters, do all of us a favor. When Snowden reached the living room, Ryan Waters was already halfway out onto the fire escape. Escape me. Incompetence was Snowden's plan B, as always. Oh Lester, I'm sorry, but that wascally wabbit was just too much for me. Snowden for the first time in so long felt the muscles below his cheeks contract and realized he was really smiling. In growing glee, Snowden ran toward Ryan Waters to help him out, to make sure he made it down to the ground safely before Lester could see. It was just that Ryan Waters didn't know that.

  Ryan Waters saw that the paranoid schizophrenic who'd broken into his home was now running toward him grinning like a maniac, and Ryan Waters got nervous. Ryan Waters ran too. Ryan Waters, on the iced metal landing, just didn't stop. Waters had so much momentum as he slid out and over the railing that for a moment it seemed to Snowden like the man might fly across the street instead of plummet down to it.

  The sound that came from Ryan Waters's mouth as he fell was like nothing Snowden had ever heard before. Nor the thud when his body hit the ground, the first time. People bounce, apparently.

  Staring down out the open window, Snowden's own screams were interrupted by the shock of seeing Lester on his cell phone at the opposite end of the block, standing by a mailbox as Wendell pissed on it. Lester looked down, then looked up, then gave the thumbs-up before calling Wendell and walking off toward Lenox. Once the sight registered, Snowden spun around to see Waters's doorknob still jiggling. The sound of the tumblers on its lock finally giving was the loudest thing he'd heard all day.

  Horus walked in, closed the door behind him.

  "Where is he? What was all that yelling? Why the window open? It's freezing out there." Horus pushed past him to get a good look out the window. "Oh hell no, you didn't. See, that ain't no way for a black man to die. I thought you were gonna to hit him in the head with a toilet lid?"

  "What are you doing here?" Snowden stepped cautiously backward away from Horus and the open window.

  "Why you looking at me that way? Oh let me guess, so you thought you was the only one had some special projects. I get it, you thought it was over, that you'd already won, didn't you? See, I'm here in case they needed a real man to get the job done. Hey, don't think this means I'm like your backup or something. More like quality control. Yeah, 'quality control,' I like that. You better act like you know. Skills like mine gets recognized."

  TESTIFY

  CEDRIC SNOWDEN, IN the closet, in the dark, on the floor, behind the coats, armed with only one lighter, a portable phone on which he kept hitting Redial, and the remains of four different packs of cigarettes. By the time she picked up her phone his battery was giving its death beep and the tobacco smoke was so thick Snowden realized he couldn't stop crying even if he wanted to.

  "I don't care what the hell they're offering you, I don't care what you think you're going to get out of this, you got to get out of there now! Why the hell has the phone been busy for six hours!"

  "I was on the Internet. Who is this?" Piper knew who it was, but she felt the question was still her prerogative.

  "You don't even understand, oh yeah you think you do but you don't know what they have planned. I don't know what they have planned, but I do know you don't need to be there. You don't even like children." The phone battery was beeping faster, Snowden heard it as the desperate rhythm pushing his pleas forward.

  "Fuck you, I have a maternal instinct. Look," Piper sighed, "sex is a funny thing, we both know that. The intimacy, it's inherent, even when you'd like it not to be. It creates social discomfort later. I know Horizon is sort of your pissing territory, and I can imagine you'd find my arrival very threatening."

  "Piper, listen - "

  "Snowden. I'm a big girl."

  "Marks is the devil," Snowden said, but it was a parting shot, he'd already remembered she wouldn't listen to him. He couldn't imagine Piper listening to anyone who had something to say she didn't want to hear.

  "The congressman is not the devil. The devil makes you sign a contract - I got a handshake deal. I never make my soul part of the negotiations, anyhow"

  "Fine. Look, there's actually one more thing." It took Snowden the entire ritual of illuminating his hiding space with his lighter, igniting one more cigarette from the pack with a long dry gasp strong enough to turn two centimeters to ash before daring himself to ask it. "You think, I don't know, that maybe I could swing by? I could really use a hug right now."

  "I'd like to say yes, but . . . no. That wouldn't really be for the best, don't you agree? That reminds me, have you seen or heard from Robert lately? He doesn't answer his phone no matter when I call."

  "Bobby? I don't know what the hell's going on with him. Look, I'm not trying to get into your pants. I mean, honestly that'd be nice, but what I really need - " Snowden caught his tongue, held it down while his thoughts caught up with it. "Hold up. Why the hell are you calling Bobby, anyway?" Snowden demanded, only to spend the rest of the night trying to figure out if his phone had died or if she'd hung up on him.

  Two days later, hours into the afternoon, the doorbell rang. Snowden wasn't surprised at all; the phone had been ringing for hours the day before and even that morning, and when you considered the four appointments yesterday and three this morning that Snowden had simply not shown up for, you would assume that someone would eventually come calling. At first Snowden's inaction was out of shock and hysteria, but after a couple of naps his motivation for immobility had evolved into resistance and passive aggression. He just sat, watched the same cartoons Jifar used to. The door buzzer went off, Snowden heard it and realized that had to happen eventually. He just never expected it would be Bobby Finley's voice coming back through the intercom.

  "Where you been? And why the hell is Piper trying to get in touch with you?" Snowden asked, hoping the sound of his suspicion would be relayed along the crackling system.

  "Don't be a jackass. Lester sent me, he wants you to come back to work now."

  "Lester can go to hell." Snowden had pushed the Talk button so hard he'd jammed his finger.

  "Don't worry, if there's a hell I'm pretty sure Lester is already going there. Screw work, I'm here to take you to church with me. Get dressed and meet me on the steps of Mt. Zion around the corner."

  Snowden was very excited about getting saved. In his lifetime, Snowden had met many saved people and even the ones in prison seemed fairly happy and Snowden was definitely not a happy man right now. Plus, Snowden found he was finally ready to believe in something, something bigger than himself, something huge to hang his load on, and he no longer feared it would crush him because his burdens were doing a pretty good job of that already.

  Bobby Finley was standing at the base of the gray steps, nodding politely at the men going inside and helping the older women with a balancing hand between car doors and the entrance even though they didn't look as frail as he did. When Bobby saw Snowden coming, he turned around and started walking inside, pausing in the lobby for Snowden to follow, then heading up to the balcony.

  "I think you'd better call in," Bobby whispered on the st
airs. "At least tell them you're sick or something. You don't want to get on their bad side." Through a glass door and onto the balcony, the only other person was the organist. She waved, winked. Bobby did the same.

  "Cuz, I barely seen you around the office for over a month, so who are you talking to? Trust me, I know how crazy they can be," Snowden snorted his incredulity.

  "No you don't. Listen, you might not have seen me hanging around lately, but I call in, I make all my appointments, pick and drop off my keys at night. I've been busy."

  "You been busy," Snowden said, recognizing Bobby's self- involvement as much as his face.

  "Yes. I've been doing a lot of thinking and a whole lot of writing. I started a new book, actually."

  "Piper Goines asked me about you, she was trying to find you too. What you got going on with her? Just tell me, does it have anything to do with Horizon?"

  "Sorry, my relationship with the lady is private." Bobby held out his palm like a cop stopping traffic.

  "Oh, it's a relationship now, look at that. With a lady, no less," Snowden chuckled as he took his seat. It was a bitter sound; it made his nose itch when he made it. Snowden had other sarcastic, ill-humored comments to make, but when he looked out below and saw the coffin laid lengthwise before the altar he forgot them. "This ain't regular services."

  "Snowden, it's two-thirty Friday afternoon. I doubt there's a religious institution in Manhattan having regular services at this moment."

  "Man, I cannot believe this. I hate funerals, I don't even plan on having one of my own. How the hell you expect to convert me to the One True Faith if you don't bring me to a proper sermon?" Snowden kicked up his feet on the chair in front of his own, sighed loudly enough for one attendee down below to stare up at the two of them. In response, Bobby reached his arm around his coworker sympathetically until the man below nodded his empathy and returned to his own mourning. Snowden was as shocked by the gesture as much as he was by how soothing it felt. See, that's all I really need, he told himself. A good hug.

  "I'm not trying to convert you to Christianity, Snowden. I'm not even Christian myself."

  "Then what the hell do you want? I don't see your black ass for weeks on end and then you decide to reappear. Why? What do you want from me?"

  Bobby looked back, waited for Snowden to stop breathing so hard so he would listen.

  "I want you to hear my confession."

  One sound Snowden doubted would be tolerated at a funeral: hysterical laughter. Bobby's elbow to Snowden's stomach was the only thing that kept both from finding out exactly what that reaction would be.

  "I'm not listening to your confession," Snowden said as he rose. "Don't dump your crap on me, I got my own problems."

  "Snowden, I've committed murder."

  Snowden sat back down again. This wasn't because he wanted to listen to more, because he really really didn't, not one word, not one tiny little fact, not even the sentence he'd just heard, it's just that Bobby said it so loudly that more heads from below were looking up and now Snowden was the one worried about attracting attention.

  "Jesus man, what the hell is wrong with you? Do you have to confess right here, with the guy's family right below?" Snowden whispered.

  "Not him," Bobby said, pointing till Snowden knocked his hand down. "I don't know anything at all about that guy, he's a complete stranger."

  "If he's a complete stranger, then why the hell are we here?"

  "Well, I killed complete strangers. So for the last month I've been coming here every day to complete strangers' funerals. I mean, existentially speaking, one complete stranger's as good as the next. Snowden, I'm the one that burned down the Mumia Abu-Jamal House."

  "No you didn't," Snowden assured him.

  "Yes I did. It was arson. It was me. Three people died, people I didn't know, had no grudge against. It's OK, I know you believe me, you saw me there. I know you weren't that drunk."

  "I saw nothing, I don't know nothing," Snowden had said this to himself so many times in so many ways lately that there was actually a part of him that believed it.

  "Lester told me to. He didn't say it in that many words, but basically he told me to. He had the whole place cased out, its weaknesses, everything. He told me nobody'd be there. You know what? Not that it makes me any less culpable, but I don't think he really cared that those men who died in my fire were there at all. I'd turn us all in if I wasn't absolutely sure those poor kids in the league would get totally lost in the shuffle. And to be honest, I'd sooner kill myself than go back to jail again. I mean, what purpose would that serve, anyway?" Bobby asked, shifting in his seat with his discomfort from the thought of it.

  "It's nothing," Snowden offered him.

  "What?"

  "What you did, don't worry about it, it's nothing. Nothing at all. That's how you have to look at it," Snowden told him.

  "Snowden, I'm not out here messing with you. This isn't some kind of joke, I'm being serious." Bobby managed to lean even closer. "I broke in and lit a basement fire below a wall of subgratle insulation and now three people who cried and laughed and loved are dead. Just because a couple of ex-cons cared more about a dream for a community than the people who actually lived in it. Snowden, I killed three human beings."

  "I know who you killed, I read the paper. You killed a guy who used to call up people and claim they had outstanding balances on their credit reports to get their MasterCard numbers."

  "Dio Demilo. He had a nine-year-old daughter Tio in foster care he wanted to win back when he got on his feet. I guilted Lester into letting the poor girl into the Little Leaders League. She cries in the middle of tutorials - your little friend Jifar told me that."

  "The other guy, the bastard who used to work at the post office, he would go break into homes that submitted hold-mail requests, he was a scumbag."

  "Greg Tanen, he was first arrested for drug possession at the age of - "

  "Nigger shut up. Just shut up. Stop doing this to yourself, it's stupid. You don't think they would have caused more misery on their own if they'd stayed around? You can't bring them back, so just stick with your dream. Accept it as the worthwhile cost. It's the only way."

  Head wagging with pity, Bobby Finley bent forward, reached under his seat, and yanked out a plastic cooler. Snowden made the oath watching him that if there some kind of burnt body part inside that he was going to start screaming, regardless of the consequence. "Peanut butter and jelly?" Bobby held out to him.

  "Bobby, why in God's name do you have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches sitting under this church bench?"

  "Peanut butter and jelly just sits better. I tried using balogna, figured it has a lot of preservatives so it would stay good under there for a couple of days, right? Gave me the shits something fierce."

  "You know what pisses me off the most about all this?" Snowden demanded.

  "I'm sorry, I don't understand. Why would you be annoyed at all?"

  "Because here I am basically agreeing with you about all the stuff you yourself are always going on about. I'm seeing you in pain and I'm telling you what you need to hear. I'm giving you an out, I'm repeating your schtick back to you and somehow you're still managing to sit there with that smug look on your face like I'm the idiot."

  "I'm sorry that's how you feel." The way that peanut butter looked sticking to Bobby's mouth, the smacking noise it made as he talked, it wasn't helping Snowden's mood in any way.

  "Those guys died and that sucks, but Harlem just got that much closer to being the promised land. Any means necessary,' right, like Malcolm X used to say."

  "Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. Turns out that's bullshit. Turns out the means just might be the most important part. You were right all along, Snowden. Belief isn't safe. Look man, that's really why I asked you here," Bobby said, swallowing the rest of his mouthful, wishing he'd brought some milk to go with it. "I've watched you almost a year now, and you don't believe in anything! Not in God, not in humanity! You have no higher cause th
an your own and yet you still manage to get out of bed every morning without losing it. You want to help me? Then tell me, Snowden, tell me how do you do it. How do you keep from being blinded by ideals?"

  "Are you nuts? I want to be blinded! You're supposed to be guiding me, inspiring me with your faith! You were always the one who had the answers," Snowden tried to remind him.

  "Yeah, and now my answer is you. Tell me, Snowden. I want to believe nothing, but I'm just not a natural so you're going to have to help me. Give me your secret," Bobby pleaded, but it was useless. His best chance at nihilism was already gaining momentum, moving physically and ideologically away from him.

  CEDRIC SNOWDEN, WARRIOR IN BLACK

  LESTER IN TWEED. Tweed jacket, tweed pants, tweed socks. Snowden couldn't believe that last bit existed, but there they were covering Lester's ankles with their jagged woolen lines. Far behind his desk, Lester sat with his legs crossed. The folders laid out as before, each glossy face staring up, pleading to be overlooked.

  "Pick your poison. No, that's not right, should be, 'Pick their poison,' that'd be a bit more accurate, wouldn't it? This is your last mandatory extinction, so make it a good one!" Wendell, in the corner, seemed to appreciate his own tweed ensemble much less, wiggling his long body around in his vest in an attempt to break free from it. "OK, fine," Lester said to him, rising to help the dog remove it. "No accounting for taste."